be you, me, or Jules. He might be back to attack me again.”
“If you’re right, and he was after someone from this house, then doesn’t it seem likely he was after Jules, especially now she’s been murdered,” Holly remarked. She didn’t mean to sound heartless, though she realised from the look on her friend’s face that that was how she came across, she was just trying to be as practical as she could. “If that is the case, I don’t think you need to worry about anything, he won’t be back.”
“Can’t you at least try and sound like you’re sorry Jules is dead?” Kirsty wanted to know. She had been horrified when told her best friend, and Gary, had been murdered barely twenty-four hours after she was attacked. “She was my best friend.”
“I know she was your best friend, she was mine as well. Of course I’m sorry she’s dead, I’d never have wanted her to die, especially the way she did.” Unlike Kirsty, Holly had heard the news on the radio, which included a report on the murders. The report had given more information than had been provided by the police when they questioned her about the murders of Julia and Gary, so she knew how brutal the murders had been, while Kirsty remained ignorant of just how her friends had died.
Both friends had been shocked when they heard about the murders, but they had different methods of dealing with bad things. “We have to get on with our lives, though, and we can’t go jumping at shadows,” Holly remarked as Kirsty continued to nervously search the small garden for anyone who might be hiding there. “The police will find the person who attacked you and murdered Jules.”
“What if he comes back for me?”
“You’re worrying about nothing,” Holly said comfortingly. “Why would he come back for you? He was after Jules. No-one would ever want to hurt you? You’re the nicest person I know.”
“But you think someone would want to hurt Jules?” Kirsty fiddled with her keys till she found the right one and unlocked the door.
“Obviously someone wanted to hurt Jules, they killed her.” Holly stepped past her friend and moved into the house. Despite her unworried attitude, she felt a small shiver run up her spine as she entered the dark house, though it was quickly dispelled when she turned the lights on in the passage and the living room. “You know I loved Jules as much as you, but let’s face it, she never treated guys very well. How often have we heard guys swearing at her and threatening her?”
“I’ve had guys swear at me, and threaten me, that doesn’t mean they’re really going to do anything. Besides, it doesn’t matter how Jules treated guys, that’s no excuse for someone to murder her.”
“I know that. We might never know why she was killed, but it isn’t going to help us to dwell on it. It’s depressing enough, without thinking about it more than we have to. Do you want some wine?” Holly asked as she made for the kitchen. “I need something to help me relax, how about you?”
“Maybe one glass. I need to get changed before I do anything else though,” Kirsty called back as she headed up the stairs to her room. “I’ll be down in a minute.”
Kirsty was standing in the bathroom, examining the bruises on her throat in the mirror above the sink, when she heard the doorbell ring. She immediately looked around fearfully, though there was no-one for her to see. “Who is it?” she called out to Holly.
“How would I know? I haven’t made it to the door yet,” Holly yelled up to her friend. “Stop worrying, do you really think someone who wants to attack you is going to ring the doorbell?” As she walked down the passage towards the front door, she sipped from the glass in her hand. Though she hadn’t wanted to admit it, her nerves were a little frayed, with the result that her first drink had been finished almost as quickly as she had poured it out. Her second drink was almost finished as well, and she had every intention of pouring herself a third when the glass was empty again.
There was no reply from upstairs, but Holly didn’t expect one.
While she opened the front door with her free hand, she raised the glass to her lips with the other. She was going to be pissed in no time at all, given the speed she was drinking, but she didn’t care.
“What the hell are you doing here, Patrick?” she wanted to know when she saw who was at the door.
Patrick didn’t answer, instead he brought his hand out from behind his leg, revealing the knife he was holding. Without saying a word, he thrust the knife into the stomach of his ex-girlfriend’s best friend, who barely had a chance to realise he was holding a weapon before she was stabbed.
When Holly folded over the knife in his hand, he grabbed her by the shoulder and shoved her backwards off the blade. His face showed no more emotion as he kicked her feet out of the way and stepped into the house, slamming the door shut behind him, than it had the previous night when he murdered his ex-girlfriend and her lover.
“Who’s at the door?” Kirsty called the question as she walked down the passage from the bathroom. She came to an abrupt stop when she reached the head of the stairs and saw Holly on the floor, and Patrick standing over her.
She came to her senses and screamed when Patrick started up the stairs and she saw the bloody knife he was holding. Sprinting back down the passage to her bedroom, she grabbed the door handle to slow herself and almost ended up falling over as she skidded. She just managed to keep her balance, though she did trap her hand between the handle and the door; swallowing a yelp of pain she untangled herself and slammed the door behind her before turning the key in the lock.
Even with the door shut, she could hear Patrick making his way up the stairs. The noise sent her to the bed, where she had dropped her phone when she got changed. She tried not to listen to the sound of approaching feet as she frantically dialled the emergency operator, but couldn’t block them out.
“Please, I need the police,” she told the operator in a terrified voice when her call was answered. “There’s someone in my house, and I think he killed my friend.” She almost dropped her phone when a heavy crash made the door shudder alarmingly. She knew the house was old, and well-built, and the door was solid, nonetheless she doubted the door would hold forever.
Fearfully, Kirsty watched the door shudder twice more as she gave her address to the police officer she was put through to. Finally, she tore her eyes from the door so she could look around for something she could use as a weapon; there weren’t many possibilities, but she did see her tennis racquet leaning against the wardrobe, that, and the balls on the floor next to it, were the best she could come up with.
Dropping the phone, she clambered off the bed and darted over to the tennis equipment. She was just grabbing it when the door burst open. The noise of the door exploding inwards and slamming against the wall made her jump in fright and drop the racquet. Kirsty kept her eyes on the doorway, and the figure that appeared in it, as she bent and fumbled blindly for her makeshift weapon; she found a tennis ball before she found the racquet, and of their own volition her fingers closed around it.
Patrick’s momentum carried him halfway across the room after the door flew open. He stopped himself with an effort before he collided with the bed and spun around to search the room for Kirsty. He spotted her as the first of the tennis balls flew from her hand to strike him, with deadly accuracy, in the stomach, causing him to double up with a grunt of pain.
The second ball that Kirsty threw hit Patrick in the side of the head, dazing him. He recovered in time to dodge out of the way of the third ball, and it sailed past him to smash through the bedroom window and disappear into the early evening darkness.
A second or so after the ball vanished, Kirsty thought she heard the sound of more glass breaking. Without being conscious of what she was doing, she dismissed the noise as her imagination, certain that there was nothing close enough to be broken; the ball should have landed in either the garden of the house she shared with Holly and Julia, or the garden of the house next door.
Seeing that Patrick had ducked out of the way, in case she had more balls to throw, Kirsty abandoned her fumbling search for
more weapons and raced for the door.
Once she reached the passage she sprinted along it to the stairs, moving as fast as she could. She wasn’t fast enough. She was about to descend the stairs, in one giant leap if necessary, when she felt a sharp pain in her lower back. Instinctively, she arched her back away from the pain and the weapon, and in doing so she lost her balance; unsuccessfully, she grabbed at the banister to try and keep herself from tumbling down the stairs.
Kirsty heard a sharp crack and felt an explosion of pain when she landed at the bottom of the stairs. She was sure she had broken her arm, but had little time to think about the injury as both the pain from her arm and that from her back were smothered by the darkness that crept into the edge of her vision. It was a repeat of the other night that she would have quite happily lived without.
As her vision faded, and everything slowly disappeared into the fog that was engulfing her mind, she dimly heard footsteps on the stairs above her. Patrick was coming to finish what he had started, and there was nothing she could do to stop him.
Before unconsciousness overtook her completely, she heard a crashing sound, and out the corner of her eye she saw someone burst through the front door. The man, whose identity she couldn’t even guess at, though she was